 | Madrigal And Trulletta |  |
ACT II.
SCENE I.
The Street.Madrigal.
Thus far into the bowels of this street
We've march'd without impediment—O night!
Alternate regent of the lapsing hours,
Sister of chaos, e'er the upstart sun
And world had being, thou, with sable sway,
Didst rule the uncreated mass of things.
To mortals flow! beneath thy friendly veil
The meagre bard oft 'scapes the prying ken
Of lurking catchpole, and eludes the touch
Unhallow'd. City prigs, of sober seeming,
Quaff their nocturnal beverige, and reel
Unnotic'd home. The painted courtezan,
Who with her quartern, and the liquid food
Of Indian shrub, repels the keen attacks
Of raging hunger, all the live long day,
Now in full blazon, with alluring leer,
Patroles the slippery streets—the—but that lovely vision
[Trulletta appears at the window.
Forbids all further simile—she beckons—
He comes, Trulletta: most refulgent maid,
Thy Madrigal—with hasty strides he comes—
Now, would the sun, in his meridian glare,
Suffer eclipse from her more radiant eyes.
This invocation to night is certainly one of the sublimest pieces that ever was written. Dr. Humbug.
The comparison of ladies' eyes with the sun is very frequent in tragedy. Among numberless passages of this kind, that of Rowe is not the least poetical, viz.
Might shine for him, and bless the world with day.
but the thought of our heroine's eyes eclipsing the sun, is certainly a more striking, and sublime allusion, than ever was yet met with on the subject of eyes.
Dr. Humbug.SCENE II.
Madrigal, Sculliona.Scul.
O! Mr. Madrigal, I'm glad you're come.
Thanks, gentle Sculliona—for this kindness,
And all thy other curtesies, e'er long
I will fulfil my promise—thy bright charms
Shall be the subject of my tuneful song.
For thee I'll strain each faculty of thought,
Till my brain burst with thinking—every tongue
Shall chaunt the beauteous Sculliona's name.
In verse immortal I'll record thy charms;
And when dear Ally Crocar is forgot,
Thou shalt be humm'd, or warbled thro' each street,
From Hyde Park Corner to Limehousian Hole .
Scul.
That will be pure!—but come; Trulletta waits.
To all judges of nature, how beautiful must the unaffected simplicity of this line appear! some of our modern wholesale dealers in fustian, would have express'd this image in the following words,
O bard sublime! thy coming glads my soul.but how far the simplicity of our image excels the force of such rant, I leave the learned to determine.
Dr. Humbug.A little poem, or sonnet, which was sung by all Britons, who had the faculty of humming, or chanting. The sublimity of this little piece was so great, that the connoissieurs affirm'd it to be equal, if not superior to any of the odes, or sonnets, antiquity can boast. Dr. Humbug.
Our author, in this scene, hath given us a second proof of his knowledge of human nature, in preferring simplicity of expression to a chain of pompous words. In most of our modern tragedies, the chamber maid; or, to speak more politely, the confident, is drawn a person of better sense than the mistress (which is indeed sometimes the case) and her diction is generally more elevated; but our author shews his dislike of such practice, by making a chamber maid speak like a chamber maid. Dr. Humbug.
SCENE III.
A Parlour.Madrigal, Trulletta. (meeting.
Mad.
My fair Trulletta!
embracing.
Trul.
Oh! my Madrigal!
embracing.
Thou nature's whole perfection in one piece!
I'll hold thee thus, till we incorporate,
And make between us an hermaphrodite.
So closely will I clasp thee in my arms,
That the big wedge, which cleaves the knotted oak,
Could hardly rend me from thy lov'd embrace—
Oh! my Trulletta, let me press thy lips,
My eager, my devouring lips to thine,
And eat thee with my hungry kisses—Now
Ye envying deities Olympian!
Aquatic! and Infernal! see, behold!
Look down, look up—confess—but speak the truth—
Say, would you not ungod yourselves, to be
The happier Madrigal? to clasp her thus?
Thus, thus to strain her to your panting bosoms?
To suck th'Ambrosia of her Hybla lips?
To banquet on her eyes? to be, like me,
Trul.
Alas, my Madrigal!
Mad.
That deep-fetch'd sigh,
Sorrow's sad offspring, speaks thy tender soul
Lab'ring with woe—thy brilliant eyes appear
Studded with pearly drops—oh! let me kiss them off,
These richer jewels, than embowell'd lie
In pregnant India's gem-prolific womb—
Why all this grief?—and is it thus we meet?—
Yes, I must chide; perforce, must chide thee, fair one:
For, oh! our meeting is not like the former;
When every look, when all our talk was love—
Yes, changeful beauty! once there was a time,
When my Trulletta rush'd into my arms,
Swift as the iron messengers of death,
Forc'd from the mortal engines, whose wide throats
Th' immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit.
Trul.
Well might'st thou think my heart encrusted o'er
With marble; or insensible, as rocks,
Should my unfilial niggard eyes refuse
To sympathize my father's threaten'd ruin.
Thou know'st the angry sentence of the law
Hangs heavy o'er him, like a gather'd cloud;
And, e'er to-morrow's journeying sun hath made
His lucid progress to his noon-day summit,
Must by the law's fell shears be cut in twain—
Ye gods! what havock does the halter make
Among your works!
Mad.
Alas! angelic nymph;
Even with a more, far more than filial woe,
I mourn the good old Cabbagino's danger:
For, should the fatal noose—the stinging thought
Alas! hath bred ten thousand scorpions here,
And given my very soul a fit of th' gripes:
That cursed mercer for a web of velvet—
Web, did I say? by all the gods a remnant!
A paultry remnant! scarce a yard! to bring
Thy venerable father to the tree;
'Tis such infernal cruelty, and ire,
As circle-bearded Israelites would scorn—
Yes; he shall feel the terrors of my rage—
The slave shall feel—I'll tear him all to pieces.
By hell's grim king I will—in black and white—
I'll have a hundred hawkers bellow out,
In roar most dreadfully vociferous—
Oh! how I'll gall him—may this carcase rot
A loathsome banquet to the fowls of heaven,
If e'er my breast admit a thought to bound,
A single thought, the progress of my rage.
Trul.
May the revengeful bloodhound never feel
A moment's respite from his gouty pangs:
And all the racking pains, that flesh is heir to,
May he accumulated underbear!
Eternal moths and mildews haunt his shop!
When, o'er his pipe, th' exhilerating juice
Of punch, that compound manifold, he sips,
May my dear father's grinning spectre rise,
And snatch th' uplifted nipperkin away
From his untasting lips! when from his glass
Of life th'out-hast'ning sands are shook, may fiends
Ten thousandfold than elemental fire:
Then snatch, half-roasted, snatch him to a mount
In icy Zembla's keen-congealing clime:
There let him freeze, ye gods! unpitied freeze,
(kneels
With shiv'ring limbs, blue nose, and chatt'ring teeth,
A spectacle of horror!
Mad.
Amen to that, sweet pow'rs!—thy filial prayer
Is register'd above; and he is doom'd
To suffer all thy imprecated curse—
But come, my dearest; dry this crystal sluice!
Thou hast been tender over much, and mourn'd,
Even too profusely mourn'd, thy father's danger—
Madam, 'tis prudent, I confess it is;
But is it loving, as true lovers ought,
To be so very prudent in our loves?
What interruption this?
An original image, and of double beauty of any I ever yet met with in the English language. Dr. Humbug.
Alexander the Great.
The expression of eating with hungry kisses is undoubtedly very sublime; but the same author in his Massacre of Paris, carries the image yet higher, where he says,
And eat your Marguirite with your hungry eyes.The epithet hungry is frequently used by tragic authors, which may probably be occasion'd by the hunger they so often experience. The sublime Mr. Banks, in his Earl of Essex, hath the elegant phrase of hungry nostrils:
with hungry nostrilswaits for my blood,
which last word I am apt to imagine an error of the press: I am of opinion it ought to be read snuff, as snuff is almost the only food for the nostrils.
Dr. Humbug.This is the most superlatively grandest expression, I have met with in any dramatic author, and may justly be called, a carrying the English language, as far as it can possibly go. Dr. Humbug.
Th' immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit.
Among your works!
This line may possibly admit of a cavil among some quibbling criticks; but there are innumerable dramatic authorities to justify our author, and incontestably prove the soul is subject to the disorders of the body. Among such authorities is one of the judicious Aaron Hill, Esquire, who says in his Merope,
And my shock'd soul aches at him.Now if the soul be liable to aches I would ask these pitiful carpers, the criticks, why it may not be as naturally subject to a fit of the gripes.
Dr. Humbug.My translator, Mr. Rone, hath render'd it horse-shoe bearded; but as circle-bearded is a more genteel and musical epithet, I have given it, as it now stands in the text.
Our author, in this spirited image, which is taken from the Regicide, hath, in my opinion, follow'd the original too closely; for, with submission to so great a genius as the DOCTOR, loathsome banquet seems to border a little on the tipperarian idiom. Dr. Humbug.
In the original it is compound quadruple; which phrase, I apprehend, is not so just as compound manifold. It is generally supposed that punch is sometimes made of more ingredients than four; especially when brew'd by the three-penny retailers. Dr. Humbug.
Our author seems to have had an eye on the following passage in the dedication to Merope, viz.
------ Life's evening gleam survey,Nor shake th' out-hast'ning sands, nor bid them stay.
It may not be amiss to inform my less knowing readers, that the said dedication is in rhyme; and that it is indubitably the most sublime, and poetical dedication in the English language. There are such a variety of beautiful sentiments, figures, and metaphors in it, that it will bear reading over a thousand times. For my part, I must ingenuously own, the style is so very masterly and poetical, that I am not yet acquainted with all its beauties, tho' I have studied it like an enigma.
Dr. Humbug,A tragical interrogatory; which, without the imputation of plagiarism, may be used by any dramatic writer.
SCENE IV.
Madrigal, Trulletta, Sculliona, Scourella.Scul.
Horror on horror!
Scou.
O inauspicious hour!
Mad.
Ha! what portends
This tristful exclamation?
Scul.
I am come
A secret to disclose, that would awake you,
Were you already dead.—My dearest master—
Alas! that I should ever live to tell it!—
Scul.
The best of masters, and the best of friends—
Scou.
The sweetest, kindest, gentlest Cabbagino—
Scul.
Is now—O savage, marble-hearted fate!—
Scou.
Is now—I cannot tell it for my tears—
Scul.
A corseful shade.
Mad., Trul.
O ye immortal gods!
Scul.
Despairing of reprieve (the turnkey thus
Reports) and nobly scorning to be dragg'd
A publick spectacle up Holborn Hill,
By plenteous draughts of Juniperian juice,
Death-dealing liquid, his undaunted soul,
Freed from corporeal limbo.
Trul.
Oh!
Mad.
Oh!
Scul., Scou.
Oh!
Mad.
The deed was worthy of a Roman soul:
And sad necessity makes all things just.
Oh! 'tis too much; and life and I are lost.
(faints.
Mad.
Alas! she faints: she dies:—Scourella, haste;
Swift as a witch upon a broomstick fly;
Nay, swifter than the lightning's swiftest speed,
And bring a son of Galen to her aid—
The dedication of my tragic piece
To him, who saves her—draw thy smelling phial,
And try the odoriferous charm to lure
Her fleeting spirit back—alas! she's gone!
Gone! irrecoverably gone—she stiffens
A monument of grief—her eyes have lost
Their fire—ah! where is that Promethean heat,
That can their light relumine?—wake, my fair!
Shake off that ghastly ravisher, grim death;
Whose ruffian arms detain thee in his clasp,
Or thy bard rushes on his point to join thee—
She hears—the fair one hears my well-known voice—
She breathes—she wakes—returning colour 'gins
T' illume her reddening cheek.
Trul.
Ill-fated hour!
Undone Trulletta!
Mad.
Pious maid! forbear
This heart-felt woe—to her apartment lead—
I'll hence, and for th'interment of thy sire
'Tis heaven to have thee; and without thee hell.
That might awake thee, wert thou dead already.
A tragical exclamation—But why immortal? An unnecessary epithet, unless intended to convince an audience, that the speaker does not mean the mortal deities in the upper gallery. Dr. Humbug.
The vocal picture of grief in miniature, and of great service to tragic writers, as it frequently helps to set a broken verse on its heroick legs. For example:
Thou nature's, &c.
Bear me, &c.
A maxim, that may probably be of some comfort to future criminals at the foot of the gallows—I had almost forgot to inform the reader, this line is in Merope.
Among the many bleeding heroines I have seen on the British stage, I remember but one, whose lover had the presence of mind to call an Æsculapian to her assistance. If the reader can recollect the lady, I need not inform him that the dedication of our heroe's tragedy is an imitation of the vast reward to the surgeon, whose art should restore her.
This line is taken from the Orphan—Methinks so beautiful a thought should be cloath'd in a more grammatical dress. Dr. Humbug.
| Madrigal And Trulletta | |